Unofficial news and tips about Google

July 29, 2010

YouTube's Playlist Bar

YouTube started to show a persistent bar at the bottom of the page that shows the videos from the active playlist. For example, if you click on a video from your subscriptions, the bar lists other recent videos uploaded by your favorite users. Click on one of your favorite videos and the bar is populated with the rest of the videos. The bar is also useful if you add videos to the queue, a temporary playlist built dynamically.

Sterling, a reader of this blog who noticed the new bar, found an annoyance: "Even if the cursor isn't over the bar, it still pops up, so if you go rate a video, favorite or share it, as soon as you move near the bar, it pops up, blocking those settings, so you have to either scroll down or click on the bar to collapse it. It looks like the spot where the bar is triggered is just above where the video player ends when it's in shrink mode."

Once you collapse the bar, it no longer auto-expands, at least until you watch a new video. I couldn't find a setting that disables the bar or moves it to its original position.

74 comments:

omgosh why are your post kinda negative in rewards what ever Google have to update? You don't seem like a good fan.

And I love that feature, Google is thinking in long term, like the mature they are. More mature users and looking forward for having as many TV like features as possible. And the like, dislike, comment, is all corrupted. Views are manipulated as much as "Like/Dislike" and comments are always the same, u say smthing and ppl jump to eat u alive. Surprise me they haven't taken it down those once cool/needed features now useless and pointless

Yes I agree with Brozufil, it's time to move on and look at the bright future Google is going to bring to the technology/communications community. By making YouTube and more TV like site, the internet can finally replace antenna/cable TV for the good of all one day and for once and for all.

I hate it.I don't need it there.Focus on what REALLY needs to be fixed, not stupid things like that.Why the hell do you need a bottom bar like that?To be like other sites?Whatever, google and YouTube are really going downhill nowadays. If this keeps up, I'm gonna just quit.

the new autoplay bar is a nightmare!! there is no option to DISABLE it. if you have to adjust your volume, the moment your cursor hovers over the thing it pops up. if you forget to hit the off switch with each new video, autoplay goes right on to the next video...which is upsetting....because if you're in the process of commenting on a video everything you wrote is gone. this is one of the worst ideas ever! There should be an option to disable it and for those that want a tv like site experience you can keep it. features like this should not be forced on people, it is an annoyance.

google is a bunch of spunk chugging monkey fucking fags and i'm going to tell you guys why. not only do they merge the other films by user and related video bar, not only did they make some videos automatically send you to another one when it's done, NOT ONLY DID THEY CRAM FUCKING USELESS ADS IN EVERY IMAGINABLE ORIFICE!!!!! BUT THEY FUCKING ADDED THIS RETARDED BAR THAT YOU CAN'T DISABLE. DAMMIT I JUST WANT TO TEAR IT OFF MY YOUTUBE PAGE AND BEAT EVERYY GOOGLE EMPLOYEE TO DEATH WITH IT FUCK YOU GOOGLE!!!!!!!

Can believe one of the largest IT companies on the planet needs to hear this, but here goes...

Don't ever implement a function on a media website like YouTube without making sure to include a way for the user to disable said function. I'm ofcourse talking about the "Recommended for you"-bar at the bottom of the page.

It takes a special kind of messup to let crap like this be included.Not only does it (the bar) only show if you click a "recommended for you" video, but no other link within the site. Which ofcourse is a good thing, se we don't have to see it on every single bloody page. It does however lack consistency. This makes perfect sense... If you'r an IDIOT!

Putting the bar at the bottom with auto play on by default and no way of turning it off makes perfect sense... If you'r an IDIOT!

Putting the bar at the bottom, blocking other features when popping up on mouse-over also makes perfect sense... If you'r an IDIOT!

Implementing the feature without making bloody sure to include a way to turn it off or atleast a way to customize it to unrecognizability also makes perfect sense... If you'r an IDIOT!

Which ever moron who happend to have a retard-moment the day they OK'd this feature need not to bother working with the youtube web-interface ever again. They should infact be restricted to a bare minimum of human interaction so not to infest the world with their stupidity.

Thanks for the tip... I tried it and it does indeed remove the annoying bar... Which is just wonderful, thank you:)Unfortunatly the code-monkeys did too good of a job because even with the bar disabled in AdBlocker the autoplay function is still on by default :/

This ofcourse makes the whole thing an even bigger screwup..We don't get an option to customize the bar. We can't remove it. Attempts at removing it with addons in Firefox only solves the cosmetic issues.

Multi billion dollar company with some of the sharpest brains on the planet working for them. And this is their A-game?

THANK YOU ZYRG. This bar has been annoying the SHIT out of me and I appreciate the Adblock filter name. Everytime that fucking bar popped up, blocking SIMPLE FEATURES like PLAY, PAUSE, VOLUME, I wanted to pull my goddamn hair out!!!!! WTF YOUTUBE

Please let me turn this off!!! It should be an extra on the page. You've shown me it exists now let me get back to being able to write comments on peoples videos without it taking me the the next one. Yes, I keep forgetting to click the off button on autoplay.

2 you click autoplay off, then go to a random video from your recommended menu and after you watch the damn video and prepare to comment, it automaticly gets you to the next random video that you do not give a damn about....AND THE DAMN AUTOPLAY IS SET OFF!!!

that gay bar, sorry, the grey bar, that is an EPIC FAIL. even if you have turned it into "autoplay off", after reloading the page and that becomes "autoplay on" again and that fucking bar pops up again! HOW WONDERFUL!!

youtube fucking blew it with this feature. I HATE IT. Please remove it. It slows down my browser, and it's so fucking annoying to shut off the Auto button every time. If you want to help and make it better, place an Auto-Repeat button. So, I don't have to keep pushing Replay or moving the cursor back to start. Fuckin' Noobs.

These complaining is pointless, guys. Youtube know exactly what they are doing because this is all for MONEY and more MONEY.They are trying there hardest to make up watch more video these last couple years, so they earn more money from ADs. Now, they are literally forcing us to watch more video by preventing us from wasting time commenting and thumbing video with autoplay on as permanent default.Watch, they will even remove the option to turn off autoplay and force us endlessly watch video and probably with extended ads of 30 seconds +.

I also hate the bar, and I was glad to find the Greasemonkey scripts to stop the autoplaying. I can't stand the automatic next video function and I can't imagine where I'd use it unless I was DJ'ing a party or something and in that case I'd use Pandora or a more suitable service.

I wish Google would allow me to disable all automatic playlisting. I also despise when I am watching a gaming video where someone has overlaid some (usually terrible) music, and then as soon as the video is finished it jumps to some music video I don't want to watch. Fortunately this Greasemonkey script will let me do what Google forgot to implement.

Brozufil, how the heck is this making YouTube "more TV like"? It would be as if you were at home trying to change channels or such with your remote control and when you go to press any lower buttons some douchebag jumps in front of your hands to slide a totally different remote control into your hands.

If the bar were something you could intentionally turn on with the flick of a switch, that would be one thing. To have it be an automatic and intrusive feature like that is like having YouTube suddenly wrench the controls out of your hands.

Taking control AWAY from users is never a wise decision when it comes to the internet!

Having options makes life enjoyable. The more options we have available to us the more freedom we have to choose how we live and what we do with our time. When options are taken away however, we lose those freedoms and life becomes restricted and unsatisfying.

Now there are more than likely quite a few people out there that find the grey "playlist bar" and autoplay feature useful. I am not one of them, however. I find them intrusive and counterproductive. Since ANY change in UI will undoubtedly result in such split opinions, it makes the most sense to allow everyone the OPTION to customize their account as he/she sees fit.

If, in fact, Google wishes for YouTube to remain an internet hotspot for years to come, they should not forget that removing their users options and making their users decisions for them will always piss off a large portion of them.

Google/YouTube, please give us the option to turn the "playlist bar" and autoplay features on or off as we see fit. Thank You

The idiot YouTube problems that ruins an otherwise great service are things like the 500 character limit on comments and other types of messages. Its pointlessly annoying. And that idiot black video bar which blocks content on android devices and should be easily disabled in preferences.

I NEED AN ANSWER ABOUT YOUTUBE. ok i go to my videos right, i click on my playlist, then at the top it says 10 views. but i have 20,000 some channel views. does that 10 views mean that my public playlist has "only" been opened 10 times and viewed only 10 times by somebody else. OR IS THAT MY VIEW COUNT

I'm just dropping a little question here hoping to get an answer as I couldnt find it anywhere.On the Uni where I work the YT Playlist-bar looks diffrent. Better, or slick, I would say. But at home, running win7 instead of XP, with the same version of Firefox, I still have the 'classic' look. Anyone know what I need to do or have for my home, Win7 system to display the new playlist-bar design? Thanks in advance!

I despise it so much, i had to find a way of disabling it.Use these to add new filters to adblock plus.It really works.Plus go fill out the survey and tell them, exactly how you feel about this, or any other gripe you have with them.Link YouTube User Feedback Survey

Filters for adblockyoutube.com###playlist-bar-baryoutube.com###playlist-bar-tray-contentyoutube.com###playlist-bar-tray